The new fantasy/comedy NIGHT AT THE MUSEUM
has one of the most impressive comedic rosters of any recent film. Just
consider the talent on board here: Ben Stiller, Robin Williams, Owen
Wilson, Steve Coogan, Paul Rudd, Ricky Gervais, and –yes – Dick Van Dyke.

Stiller has made some of the more
sidesplitting comedies of the last decade. Ditto for Owen Wilson.
Steve Coogan perhaps gave one of the funniest performances of the year in
one of 2006’s best comedies, TRISTRAM SHANDY: A
COCK AND BULL STORY. Paul Rudd was a scatological riot as a loser in
THE 40-YEAR-OLD VIRGIN. Ricky Gervais
just may take top honors as the funniest man alive. His performance in TV’s
THE OFFICE (the original BBC version, not the Americanized NBC offering)
just might be the most hilarious ever to grace the tube. It seems
legitimate to say that NIGHT AT THE MUSEUM has the goods – at least on paper
– to potentially be a romp of unrelenting hilarity.

Perhaps the biggest surprise of the film is
not so much in the number of gifted comic actors the film has in its
arsenal, but more in how misused they all are. NIGHT AT THE MUSEUM
has moments of slapstick fun and a few genuine chuckles here and there, but
it is never able to create and maintain a consistent laugh-out-loud quotient
throughout its 95 minutes. It has a nifty presence (what if all of the
exhibits at the Natural History Museum in New York came alive every night),
but the film itself never creates anything clever or memorable beyond its
own gimmick. Instead, it lets its predilection towards juvenile humor that
only pre-pubescent kids would enjoy and its oversaturated – and inconsistent
– CGI effects take center stage. As a result, NIGHT AT THE MUSEUM is never
really exciting, entertaining, or funny. It lacks that latter element to
the largest degree. It also might be the first film that I’ve seen
where a Natural History exhibit urinates on a person’s head and shoulders.
Hardy-har.

The film typifies Hollywood’s strict and
strident adherence to what I call “kitchen sink” cinema. In essence, throw
just about anything at the screen and hope that it all gels seamlessly and
smoothly together to create an enjoyable whole. Certainly, there’s a lot of
stuff thrown at our eyes in the film – famous historical figures and
monuments, cowboys and Roman soldiers, lions and tigers, zebras and monkeys,
hell…even stampeding dinosaur bones – but having all of these things
run amok does not make for a fun and enjoyable ride. There’s simply too
much chaos aplenty in NIGHT AT THE MUSEUM and not enough discipline. Even
worse is the cast, who collectively should have been able to leave me in
stitches for weeks. Instead, they inspired me to check my watch a lot and
yearn to leave the theatre to see the light of day.

Now, there is nothing wrong with a comedy
with fantastical elements that approaches being a live action cartoon.
There is energy to NIGHT AT THE MUSEUM, but no heart and wit. Surely, there
could have been ample room for social satire and hearty laughs with the
thought of a night watchman interacting with – say – Attila the Hun or Teddy
Roosevelt. The film creates a few scattered scenes of mild amusement, but
no moments truly grasp for wanton hilarity, or a sense of cadence or flow.
All we essentially have is the usually funny, socially inept Ben Stiller
run, fall, scream, and get peed on. Clearly, Stiller has made a career of
playing roles where his utter humiliation provides for much of the laughs,
but in NIGHT AT THE MUSEUM he seems to be a bit on auto-pilot in a
derivative, mindless, and hyperactive story. When the sights and sounds
overwhelm the actors – some of whom are the funniest working today – then
what’s the point?

Stiller plays Larry Daley, a desperate sap
and a divorcee that sees to have a lot of problems securing and holding on
to a job. He has a strained relationship with his ex-wife and an equally
problematic one with his son that means the world to him, but he really
needs to land a job to get some respect. His mission to gain employment is
made all the more dire by the fact that his wife is getting close to a
hugely successful bond trader (Paul Rudd, whose comedic abilities are all
but stunted in a role that could be best described as a walk-on; what a
waste). The bond trader not only has Larry’s wife in his back pocket,
but he’s even managed to lure his son over to his side.

Soon, in a desperate act, Larry takes the
only job that is currently available to him: night watchman at New York’s
Museum of Natural History. Obviously, a graveyard shift at a job he has
little interest in seems very unappealing, but Larry begrudgingly takes it.
Larry may not know much about being a watchman, but he also knows very
little about history, so he tries to pick up some helpful info from the
museum’s pretty guide (Carla Gugino, the film’s only good eye
candy). Through her he also meets up with the museum’s hard edged and foul
tempered museum director, Mr. McPhee (played by the great Gervais in a
performance that never really harnesses his gifts).

Larry also meets the men that he’s set to
replace. His predecessors are played by none other than veterans Dick Van
Dyke, Bill Cobbs, and Mickey Rooney, the latter who just might be old enough
to actually be an exhibit at the museum. Anyhoo’, the three of them give
Larry a few pointers here and there, as well as leaving him an
instruction manual that he is to follow. As the three old chuckleheads
leave Larry slowly starts to think that something is not normal with the
museum. His suspicions are confirmed when he sees the T-Rex bone exhibit
come to life and take a drink from the water fountain. While Larry is
astonished, I was left wondering, gee, what benefit would a creature made up
all of bones need with guzzling H2O? Oh, never mind.

Within no time, all historical hell breaks
loose. Larry finds himself being chased by Attila the Hun, conversing with
Teddy Roosevelt (curiously underplayed by the usually zany Robin Williams),
and being tormented by miniature exhibits, like the Wild West one with a
cowboy played by Owen Wilson, who has some of the films decent chuckles (“I
wish you would not refer to me as small, that hurts me!”) as well as 3 inch
tall Octavius, played by Steven Coogan who also generates a few more laughs
(“Our hearts are all big in battle…metaphorically speaking”).

Considering the wild and imaginative premise,
NIGHT AT THE MUSEUM really suffers from a definite lack of magic and heart.
Nothing really captures a legitimate sense of awe and wonder. I mean,
what if one could strike up a conversation with Teddy Roosevelt or hang
with an ancient Egyptian ruler? Beyond that, what if lions, mammoths, and
skeletal dinos came to life right before your eyes? There was not one
moment during NIGHT AT THE MUSEUM that inspired a sense of fun, whimsy, or
excitement. What we really have is scene after scene of regurgitated CGI
visuals that seem like discarded elements from JUMANJI mixed in some
bathroom humour and a lot of sight gags that no one over ten will honestly
appreciate. There’s no intelligence in the film’s humour. All we get is a
lot of creatures running around and into things and a few embarrassing
glimpses of an 86-year-old Rooney sheepishly dish out weak and stale
one-liners as if he’s being fed them through hearing aid.

NIGHT AT THE MUSEUM ultimately suffers
considerably from the squandering of its most precious resource – its
talent. Again, it needs to be mentioned that the film should get some
sort of lifetime Razzie achievement award for most blatant misuse of
accredited comedic stars. Stiller has been so winning, funny, and likeable
in past comedies where he played an everyman who commanded our sympathy when
insurmountably heinous atrocities happened to him. Here, he just runs
around screaming and reacting to visuals. Coogan and Wilson have some fun
with their parts, part they never really sparkle. Williams seems to be
reigned in a bit much, and Dick Van Dyke and company do a lot of horrible
camera mugging. And – horror upon horror – when a film can’t make Ricky
Gervais inspire large laughs to the point of tears, then something is
very wrong.

NIGHT AT THE MUSEUM is not an awful film; I
would recommend it to younger children who can find entertainment value in
being distracted for a few hours by visual excesses and unintelligible
jokes. Beyond that, NIGHT AT THE MUSEUM will bore the rest of us in the
sense that it represents a large misappropriation of power. While watching
it I felt like it came across as being directed by a kid that had every cool
toy and his disposal and had no idea how to play with them. NIGHT AT THE
MUSEUM was directed by Shawn Levy, a filmmaker who took a tremendously
gifted comedian like Steve Martin earlier this year and made him parade
around in the abortively awfulPINK PANTHER
remake. As with that film, Levy has a huge arsenal of proven comic
masterminds in NIGHT AT THE MUSEUM, but instead of letting them loose to
inspire and generate hearty laughs, he lets them get swallowed up by the
film's perfunctory and monotonous spectacle. The movie is just too
pea-brained and dumb for the caliber of performers it has. Even worse, it’s
disposal and banal filmmaking. The film reminds me of something Ricky
Gervais’ David Brent once said: “If at first you don't succeed, remove all
evidence you ever tried.”